How To Control Nocturnal Behaviour In Cats?

Nocturnal-Behaviour-In-CatsIs your cat troubling you in the night? You have been having sleepless nights because of your cat’s vocalization? There is certainly something in her routine that you are doing wrong.

Curiosity and restlessness are so intensely inherent in cats that it beleaguers most of their human companions. While you are sleeping in your bedroom, your cat may be playing and scratching your couch. If she remains consumed in herself, it is still manageable. Trouble comes when your feline friend pats, scratches or screeches at you when you are in deep slumber. Unequivocally, it is quite annoying when you have to get up from your sleep just to feed your cat, clean her litter box or to play with her so she can stop mewing. Parents would be surprised to know that people who get up in the night just to give attention to their cat’s demands are actually contributing more to such behavior.

Well, if you are one such doting parent who endures the suffering to keep up with your kitty’s demands, you might need to reconsider your attitude and her daily schedule.

Here are some guidelines to follow if you feel helpless and are having sleepless nights.

How To Stop Nocturnal Behaviour In Cats?

Keeping the cat active during the day

The more cat will remain active during the day, the easier she’ll get tired by the night and will eventually fall asleep. Thus, make sure she plays enough and stays active all day long so when you go off to snooze, she is left with no energy to disturb you and falls asleep too. In fact, you can take advantage of dawn and dusk when the cats are said to be most active. Let them burn their energy before the night settles in.

Meal Timings

Cats are frequent eaters. They eat a smidgen of their meals at a time and thus need food every other hour. However, one must completely avoid feeding their cat in the late evenings or an hour before your sleep time as it can keep the cat awake in the wee hours. Scheduling her meals throughout the day can thus ensure she is fed well and doesn’t get hunger pangs at the wrong hours.

Provide a sleeping area far off from your bedroom

If somehow you feel helpless because of your overactive, playful cat that doesn’t seem to sleep even after all the efforts you put in to get her to snooze, you can shift her bedding to a different room. Doing this will prevent the noise and disturbance to enter your room while you sleep tight. Keeping her at a good distance from your bedroom will also prevent her from entering your space in the night. However, make sure her abode is comfortable enough so she doesn’t keep walking in the house and rummaging through things unnecessarily.

Make Your Bedroom Pitch Dark

Cats are nocturnal and they can comfortably roam around in low light. In fact, it actually helps them wander more securely and carry their mischief. However, they cannot see when it is pitch-dark. Thus, switching off all the lights in your bedroom and making it as dark as is possible will prevent her from entering your room.

Provide play area for climbing, scratching and perching

You have done everything…fed her well, played with her all day long but her energy levels just don’t seem to drain at all. Now what? Well, in such cases where your cat acts as a sleep defying machine, the best thing to do is to renovate her play area. Put a scratching post where she can satiate her scratching urges. Placing cat furniture in her playing area is another good option. They are specially designed for cats to give enough space for climbing or perching wherever she wants to and the number of times she wants to.

Do not give attention to nighttime vocalization or disturbances

Attention reinforces the nocturnal behavior in cats. When you continue fulfilling their demands in the middle of the night, be it eating, playing, whatsoever, you are indirectly reinforcing the habit of waking you up regularly. So, when a kitty comes to you and pats, scratches or vocalizes while you are asleep, just ignore her. Rather turn around and don’t respond. Once you stop paying attention, she will stop coming to you with her demands.

Nocturnal behavior is common in cats and does pester parents a lot. However, with proper behavioral training, healthy diet at regular intervals and with enough playtime such patterns can be subsided easily. Most importantly, make sure your cat is disease-free because, at times, underlying diseases or parasites can also cause sleeplessness in felines. It is thus important to get the cat checked by the vet if you find any signs related to sickness in your furry bundle.

 

You may also like to read 5 Cat Toys and Games Tailor-Made for Entertaining Indoor Cats